there are a lot of different ways to set your ENVs for maya. Most of them are set in the advanced settings environment varibles or your computer. but Darl Obert shows a cool trick on making less permanent env changes when using maya.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

The extension for Maya 2013 software help users' complex data and creative ideas flow more smoothly through the sophisticated pipelines required to tackle today's challenging productions. The new Maya DX11Shader helps artists take advantage of the power of Microsoft DirectX 11 to create and edit high-quality assets and images in less time. Also, building on the Open Data platform, Alembic, and File Referencing, Scene Assembly tools provide users with a mechanism for representing production assets in Maya as discrete elements, each with complete support for multiple representations.

Features:
Next-Gen Viewport Display and Shading*—Take advantage of Microsoft® DirectX® 11 technology with the new Maya DX11Shader. Offering you real-time, centralized, easy-to-control shader effects such as crack-free tessellation, vector displacement maps, translucence, reflections, and shadows, the DX11Shader is built with a new API (application programming interface) that exposes DirectX 11 natively in Maya with HLSL (High Level Shading Language) support.
Scene Assembly Tools for Smarter Data—Creating large, complex worlds is now easier. Scene Assembly tools provide a mechanism for representing production assets in Maya as discrete elements. Each has complete support for multiple representations. You can easily swap between different representations—for example, various levels of detail—selecting the most appropriate balance between fidelity and performance for the task at hand.
*Only available on the Microsoft® Windows® 64-bit operating system.

Subscription Extensions
This Maya 2013 extension is expected to be available in September 2012

Friday, August 3, 2012

This video focuses on working with two new tools we added in Maya and Mudbox 2013; nHair and Mudbox Curves. The curves in Mudbox makes it simple to get great guides for use in sculpting nHair. Check out the video and let me know how it works for you.